Akhenaten

The most bizarre example of this confusion of ancient and modern is prob­ably King Akhnaton: A Chronicle of Ancient Egypt (1928). Written by an American, Simeon Strunsky, it is based around a humble character who makes friends with the royal family. While ostensibly a 'chronicle', it is full of amazing anachronisms and terrible dialogue of the 'if you're ever in the land of Canaan, look us up' variety. The hero is Bek, a historical individual (one of Akhenaten's craftsmen, who also appeared in Rawnsley's poem quoted earlier). He is the son of Seker, who works for 'the Horus Water Reserve Development Board'. The young Bek wins a scholarship to the Anion College of Fine Arts at Thebes. Thebes for a student is an exciting town: a character tells Bek that it' "is full of nice little eating places, and some day when you have an evening off from college I must take you out. Are you fond of foreign food?"' Bek proceeds through the bureaucratic ranks, eventually becoming Head of the Pharaonic Department of Public Works and Town Planning at Thebes. Here he meets Akhenaten's daughter 'Neffy' (Neferneferuaten), who complains to him, ' "You know Bek, it's awful dull here in Thebes since Dad moved out to Aten City."' Bek eventually moves out to Aten City, marries 'Neffy', and the novel ends with them both attending the circumcision-feast of the baby Moses.

Equally unburdened by historical accuracy is another 1920s American novel, Archie Bell's King Tut-Ankh-Amun: his romantic history. Relating how, as Prince of Her- monthis, he won the love of Senpa, priestess of the temple of Karnak, and through her interest achieved THE THRONE OF THE PHARAOHS (1923). I wonder, although I have no evidence for this, whether this novel is connected with films. The long title, with its idiosyncratic capitalisation, recalls the hyperbole of film posters, and the novel shares some set-pieces with silent films, such as a virgin being sacrificcd to the Nile. Bell presents an unconventional version of the Amarna royal family, as grotesques in a pageant of Orientalist excess. The villainess is the gorgeously bejewelled and scented Khu-Pen-Aton - actually Meritaten after assuming her father's name and title. (The odd form of the name must be derived somehow from one of Petrie's old publications which call Akhenaten Khu-en-Atcn.) Khu- Pen-Aton is an evil temptress reminiscent of movie star Theda Bara's character­isation of Cleopatra in the 1917 film of the same name. Like Khu-Pen-Aton, Theda Bara's Cleopatra is an exotic and destructive vamp who consumes men - a link also suggested by the book's covcr art, which shows a woman in vaguely Egyptian dress lying on a chaise-longue

with a panther at her feet. Bell's novel centres on Khu-Pen-Aton's vicious rivalry with her virtuous younger sister Senpa (Ankhesenpaaten). Senpa has fallen in love with Tutankhamun, who had previ­ously incurred Khu-Pen-Aton's hatred by rejecting her sexual advances. In a climactic scene, Khu-Pen-Aton is about to have Senpa sacrificed to the Nile, but is eventually overpowered and dragged off to prison by Tutankhamun's cohorts. In prison Khu-Pen-Aton uses her irresistible vamp skills to seduce and murder the guard:

The stalwart officer, unable to curb himself, lay his head against the

cushions of the couch, and with her cheeks pressed against his own, she breathed the warm breath of passion against his face.

'I love you!' he whispered, as he breathed the flower odors from her bosom drapery . . .

She drew a dagger from beneath the pillow and buried it deep in his side, and grasping his throat with her hand, she fell upon him with a leap and thrust it deeper again."'⁴

When Tutankhamun's soldiers arrive to kill her, Khu-Pcn-Aton commits suicide in an obvious parallel of Cleopatra's: 'they saw the white breast laid bare, the dagger raised and then thrust deep'.²' Tutankhamun and Senpa marry and rule Egypt, though shortly afterwards Tutankhamun dies in agony, stricken by the plague.